Ancient Capital City: Beijing (1)

With the exception of Nanjing as the capital city during the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, the feudalistic dynasties of Yuan, Ming and Qing, all designated Beijing their capital city. As such, Beijing completely superseded its predecessors including the capital cities of Chang an Luoyang and Kaifeng.

The capital city of the Yuan Dynasty (1276-1368), Dadu (Beijing today), was one of the most magnificent and well-designed capital cities of the world during the 13th and 14th Century. Marco Polo had described in his travelogue, that Beijing was such a beautiful city that mere words could not describe it.

As part of their assimilation of Chinese culture, the Mongol rulers had modeled the overall layout of Dadu city after the classic city-planning code in Rites of Zhou Dynasty. Apart from the chief architect, Liu Bingzhong, other foreign experts such as the Nepalese architect, Aniko (1244-1306) and others were also invited to participate in the design of Dadu.

During that period, Dadu city had 3 sets of walls and 11 city gates, with an orderly architectural layout and a clear network of roads. To accommodate some elements of the nomadic life-style of the Mongols, a piece of land in the northern part of the city much like the steppe, was set aside for the emperor and his sons to practice horse riding and archery.

As the original site of today s Beijing city, the locality and layout of Dadu city had a direct impact on the ways in which the latter Ming and Qing dynasties built Beijing city.

Based on the foundation of Dadu city, the rulers of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) reconstructed Beijing city. As the capital city of early Ming Dynasty was Nanjing, Beijing city lost some of its importance during that period. For the ease of defending the kingdom against Mongols from the north, the Ming government abandoned a stretch of barren land, about 5 miles wide, to the north of Beijing and thus, reduced the scale of the city.

When Emperor Chengzu (reign 1402-1424) decided to shift the capital to Beijing , the southern wall of the imperial city within Beijing city was relocated further southwards by about one mile, to facilitate the extension of the road (for the imperial carriage) leading to the main gates of the innermost imperial palace.

By the middle period of the Ming Dynasty, another wall was constructed just outside the southern wall of the city, to ward off the Mongolian cavalry which had attacked from the south several times. However, due to insufficient financial resources, the Ming emperor was unable to construct the other three sides of the city wall to form a complete set, thus leaving Beijing city with an inverted T-shaped layout.

The Imperial Palace (Forbidden City) was built at the heart of Beijing city and was conceived by using the north-south axis to bisect the city symmetrically. Spanning a length of up to 8 km, this central axis commences in the south, at the gate of the outer city, Yongding Gate, stretching up north through Zhengyang Gate of the inner city and then through the gates of Tian an Gate, Duan Gate and Wu Gate of the Imperial City, the gates of Shenwu of the Imperial Palace and finally over Jingshan Hill, ending at the Drum and Bell towers up north.

Built on top of the central axis were ornamental columns, bridges, squares of different sizes and magnificent buildings which accentuated the stately air of the imperial palaces, and clearly emphasized the supreme power of the feudal emperor.

Jingshan Hill, which is located on the northern side of Forbidden City, deserves a mention. It is a man-made hill that was created during the Ming Dynasty, from the soil dug up to create moats around the city. Initially called Wansuishan, the hill was renamed Jingshan during the Qing Dynasty. Jingshan Hill was also the highest point in the ancient Beijing city and its main peak sits on top of what used to be the imperial harem of the Yuan Dynasty. Consequently, the hill was also named Zhenshan, a name with the symbolic meaning of suppressing and preventing the revival of pasty dynasties.

source: Chinese Architecture, published by China International Press